1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to the method of treating and curing the smoking habits and other related maladies prevalent among adults, and to provide an oral device particularly useful in such a method.
2. Prior Art and General Background
Smoking is a complex activity which starts with mechanical and physical steps. When these steps are performed in a habitual or ritualistic fashion, the end result or goal is the satisfaction of physical and Psychological needs.
The mechanical steps involved in smoking include: carrying cigarettes, lighting them, placing them between the lips, sucking on them, inhaling the smoke, exhaling, holding the lighted cigarette, and repeating the maneuver. A physical need that is satisfied by these steps is the achievement of a blood level of nicotine and other substances. This is somewhat that habituated smoker's body comes to sense a worthwhile goal. Psychological needs that are satisfied by the steps involved in smoking are very basic and infantile, including ingesting, sucking, grasping, and repetitive hand to mouth activity.
That the psychological needs of smoking are of as great importance as the chemical ones is amply illustrated by consistent observations on persons who have recently tried to quit. They eat more and gain weight, "don't know what to do" with their hands, and experience extreme psychological discomfort--manifested as irritability. While the loss of chemical satisfaction contributes to this by unknown and indirect mechanisms, the substitution of food for smoking substitutes the importance of the sucking and ingestion behavior.
This habitual, complex activity can be stopped at any point. One approach, supplying one of the goals by administering nicotine by various other routes, has been largely unsuccessful--and has its own chemical hazards.
It is believed in the present invention that an oral device to modify the physical activities has the best chance of success in individuals who wish to break the smoking habit.
Oral devices for pacifying babies, particularly during the teething process, a non-analogous art, are of course well known. Typical examples of such pacifiers are shown in the below listed patents:
______________________________________ Patentee(s) Patent No. Issue Date ______________________________________ Grabler 462,763 Nov. 10, 1891 Palmer 1,623,969 April 12, 1927 Johnson 2,595,462 May 6, 1952 Newmark Des. 171,165 Dec. 22, 1953 Carden 2,827,055 March 18, 1958 ______________________________________
It is noted that the Palmer "Teething Device for Infants" utilizes a ribbon attached to the oral device for suspending the device about the neck as a pendant. The baby teething device of the Johnson patent likewise includes a chain for attaching the device to the wrist of the baby.
Also, oral devices serving as orthodontic mouth exercisers for juveniles in the age group from about three to fourteen years, another non-analogous art, are also known. See for example the Pat. No. 3,187,746 issued to Warren E. Gerber on June 8, 1965.
The foregoing prior teachings are, it is believed, not relevant to the treatment and cure of smoking habits and the like in adults.
3. Summary Discussion of the Invention:
The present invention provides an oral device and technique for treating and curing the smoking habit and the like in adults. The oral device is carried in a reassuring way, like a cigarette pack, but closer to the mouth. It is handy for hand-to-mouth activity. The needs to ingest and suck are satisfied--the shape and texture are designed to be particularly satisfying in this regard.
An important physical modification produced by the present invention is its substitution for cigarettes in the complex activity of smoking. The end result of its use is the most important physical sodification of all: the cessation of tobacco use with deposition in the lungs and bloodstream of carcinogens and other injurious substances such as carbon monoxide, with their devastating results on health.
The use of the oral device of the present invention also causes salivation, gastric acid secretion, and stimulation of the cranial nerve endings in the tongue, in like fashion to the stimulation caused by smoking cigarettes and the like. Other physical effects also occur in the body as a result of the use of the present invention, including perhaps the production of endorphins in the bloodstream.
It is believed that it is the similarity (same nerve pathways) of the stimulation caused by cigarette smoking (without invoking any of the chemical affects of nicotine) that is important to help break the habitual craving for such stimulation by cigarettes.
In use, the oral device of the present invention is put in the adult mouth on the tongue when the urge to smoke arises. The relatively small object is moved about the mouth under the action of the tongue.
In addition to treating the smoking habit, the present invention can, in like fashion, be used to treat over-eating wherein the same oral device is inserted in the mouth whenever an unnecessary urge to eat arises. As used herein, the phrases "smoking habit", "desire to smoke", "urge to smoke" are considered equivalent to and inclusive of an over-eating habit, a desire to est, and an urge to eat, respectively. In like fashion the present invention can be used to treat a drug habit, and such use is likewise considered included in the phrases "smoking habit and the like," etc. Also, the work "adult" as used herein is meant to include those above the age of juveniles, for example from about the age of sixteen on up.